Valley Views: State Senate race showed need to reform voting laws

Mar. 12, 2013

Cecilia Tkaczyk

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Cecilia Tkaczyk

About this series

The Journal is running an opinion series on voting-related issues. New York consistently ranks among the worst states when it comes to enacting voting reforms and generating good turnout at the polls. The series continues Wednesday with a look at the rights of college students to vote in elections. To see earlier parts of this series, go to www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/opinion.

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Before deciding to run for office, I knew our political system wasn’t perfect, but it wasn’t until I experienced the electoral process firsthand that I realized just how deeply flawed it has become.

Even before I announced my candidacy, the problems afflicting our democracy were put on display in the new 46th Senate District. The Senate district itself had been gerrymandered in an attempt to guarantee victory for the Senate Republicans’ hand-picked candidate, a wealthy sitting assemblyman.

The loopholes in New York’s sieve-like campaign finance laws presented another challenge and demonstrated the need to reform these regulations so that more regular citizens, and not just the wealthy and well-connected, can run for office.

Even after Election Day, with the vote too close to call, the flaws of our electoral system were again put on display as attorneys attempted to disenfranchise hundreds of voters in the district who had cast absentee and affidavit ballots.

These New Yorkers wanted nothing more than to have their voices heard in our electoral process, but it took tens of thousands of dollars and a lengthy court process to have that simple request realized.

With the courts weighing the validity of those challenges, the election results were delayed for months, and the people of the 46th Senate District were without proper representation.

Democracy stumbled, but in the end, fortunately, justice prevailed. The courts ordered hundreds of absentee ballots be opened and counted.

With the election finally over, the job of governing has begun, and I am focused on working full time to serve all residents of the 46th Senate District, and New York state. In addition to kick-starting the economy and protecting New Yorkers’ rights, I am dedicated to correcting the flaws that have damaged our political system and our democracy.

As the ranking member of the Senate’s Elections Committee, I will soon introduce a legislative package that will take a two-pronged approach to correct the most glaring defects of our electoral system.

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In simple terms, my legislation will:

1. Reform the state’s campaign finance system to reduce the influence of lobbyists, special interests, shadowy donors and big corporations.

2. Ensure that the rights of every single eligible voter are protected and guaranteed.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo has made campaign finance reform a top priority for this legislative session, and I look forward to working with him and my colleagues in the Legislature to create an effective public financing system that will restore people’s faith in their state government, and make our government more responsive to the needs of the people.

The second component of my Election Law reform package will ensure the voting rights of every eligible resident of our state, because the vitality of a democracy depends upon the participation of its citizens.

With voter turnout in the United States lagging behind so many other countries, we should be doing all we can to encourage our citizens to vote, rather than creating obstacles that disenfranchise eligible voters who want to participate.

I will join Senate Democratic Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins, D-Yonkers, to sponsor a measure to provide New Yorkers the option of early voting, which is currently allowed in 32 states and the District of Columbia. Early voting simply permits voters to visit an election official’s office or, in some states, other satellite voting locations, and cast a vote in person prior to Election Day.

I would also take the decisions made by the Appellate Court in my case and codify them in state law. In most cases these reforms relate to the hyper-technical challenges made in an attempt to deny a voice to many absentee and affidavit ballots; challenges that were rightly rejected by the court.

In essence, my legislation would remove obstacles to voting and ensure that any ballot cast by an eligible voter in reasonable compliance with election law could not be judged invalid because a trivial technicality.

This package of bills may not be a cure-all for the ills of our political system, but it will increase voter participation and public engagement. To ensure that elected officials listen to the voters and not the special interests, we have to empower the voters; and that is precisely what my legislation will do.

The end result will be a stronger democracy and a more responsive government.

Cecilia Tkaczyk is a New York state senator for the 46th Senate District, which includes the towns of Esopus and Lloyd in Ulster County. Her opponent in the November election, George Amedore, declined the Journal’s invitation to write a column about voting reform at this time.